


Continuum (the Hotel California remix)

by Molly



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-03
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>They're only getting closer. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Continuum (the Hotel California remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [8 April 2004, 3:51 p.m.](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2831) by tripoli8. 



> Written for the 2007 Remix Redux.

**2009 Jul 16, 1600Z**

Years ago, Jack held Daniel in his arms, warm and sunlit in the dozing hours of a late summer afternoon. Half his thoughts were conscious and half were dreams, all of them content and heated. Later they made love as the sun dropped behind the mountains; later Daniel cooked for them; later, they tangled together in Jack's wide bed and slept.

Now, Jack waits on the pel'tak of an empty ship, his breath an icy fog in the still, still silence. His shivers stopped minutes or years ago, when the hallucinations faded and left him with nothing but his slowing heart to mark the time.

Below, on a world Jack never walked, people he has never known wind their way through lives he wouldn't understand, trapped in their own endless history. Behind him, in a dark, golden hallway, two dead Hound guards with a dead mission lie stiffening in their own frozen blood. Around him, pale planet-light casts black, empty shadows at strange angles and sheds silver over lifeless controls and panels.

Before him, a splinter of light breaks through the last monochrome moments of Jack's life and expands into a flame of warmth and color. Jack blinks, a painful scrape of movement, almost audible.

Gilded and smiling, Daniel crouches on the deck, elbows on his knees, hands dangling. His eyes are clear and infinitely kind, and Jack can't tell if the glow is coming from above or from inside. He reaches out, muscles stiff and slow, pathetic: half an inch, an inch, is all he can manage. Daniel reaches out, too, hand ghosting over Jack's face, his arm, his hand, immaterial. Warmth floods all the places Daniel tries to touch, and spreads out through Jack's body in welcome fire. When it stops, Jack can reach out again, really reach, and when Daniel reaches back, they touch.

Jack's eyes widen. So does Daniel's smile.

"Daniel," Jack says, and if it's his last word in this life, he thinks he's chosen well.

Daniel's eyes kindle. "Hi, Jack."

  


 **July 16, 2009, 3:55 p.m.**

In his heart, Daniel is bathed in warmth and sunlight filtering through a western window. The gentle ache in weary muscles eases, smoothed away by rough, strong hands less than an hour past. He can still feel it, a liquid rush and tremble, hear his own voice and Jack's following, hoarse and low. Inside, Jack's arm covers him, Jack's breath pushes slow and warm against his throat, and the afternoon stretches out forever.

In this cold room, breathing filtered, antiseptic-scented air, Daniel removes his watch and his glasses. He feels Sam's eyes on him, wide and wet and frightened. By the door, Teal'c stands a silent, certain watch. No measured rush to the gate this time, no ship to steal, no orders to disobey; just the three of them in this room, retrieval more than rescue. A rescue of last resort. Teal'c watches because he's always been their watchman, their first and last defense; Sam cries because she's helpless, and she loves them.

Daniel takes off his jacket and his shoes.

Years ago, Jack's couch held him up and warmed him, and Daniel stared at the ceiling with its familiar bumps and whorls and patterns, wrapping each second in memory so thick and strong he could carry it with him anywhere, any time, always. Now he stretches out on the barren desk, cold feet hanging off the end, his crumpled jacket pillowing his head. The world aches around him, a pressure he's grown used to again, a pressure he's relearned to love. Sam's hand closes around his left, a fragile trembling grip, and Teal'c comes to stand beside him, palm pressing gently across his forehead.

"I have to go," he tells them. He presses sorrow into his voice, a sorrow he can't feel, a lie. A gentle one.

He can feel the edge beneath his feet. The leap, the flight, too many heartbeats away.

  


 **2009 Jul 16, 1605Z**

"So," Jack says. "... _not_ a hallucination?"

Daniel laughs softly; Jack can feel it in Daniel's fingers, still clasped around his hand. "Nope."

There's a sadness in Daniel's eyes, beneath the strength, beneath the fine layer of joy. Jack's voice is low, but steady, as he says, "Not exactly a rescue, either, I take it."

Daniel shakes his head. "'Fraid not." Jack watches him for a quiet, measured moment, and Daniel shrugs. "Close as we could get."

"Where are you?"

"Here."

Jack's eyes narrow. "Where _else_ are you?"

Daniel's gaze wavers, but only for an instant. It comes back focused and sure. "Just here."

"God _damn_ it, Daniel!"

"I pick my own battles, Jack. You know that."

"Yeah, but do you have to keep picking the ones you've already lost?"

Daniel shrugs, a ripple of _whatever_ under cream cable knit.

Jack uses Daniel's hand to pull himself up to his feet, then lets go, backing out of the light. "What makes you think I'm any more enlightened now than I was seven years ago?"

"Seven years," Daniel answers dryly. And then he grins, swift, into Jack's heart like a knife. "Plus, my vast store of otherworldly knowledge."

Jack snorts. But he steps closer. On the one hand, glorious noble deep-freeze death. On the other hand, Daniel. So he takes a deep breath, and another step. And another.

Seven years ago, he'd never seen Daniel smile like that.

  


 **Now**

Years later, Jack will reach into Teal'c's broken body with immaterial hands and draw the living soul of him into a larger world, with larger battles than his warrior's spirit has ever known. Years later, Daniel will touch Sam's thin, pale lips as she closes her eyes and breathes a last shallow breath, and lift her from her fragile shell of age and death into a peace and purpose no mortal life could never encompass. Years from now, together, they will walk across the face of worlds not yet made, guides and guardians.

Right now, Jack puts his hand back into Daniel's and holds firm. "Okay," he says, "so how does this work, exactly?"

Daniel rolls his eyes, and waves a hand at Jack's chest. "Look down."

Jack is _glowing_. His eyebrows climb. "Uh...did I release my burdens when I wasn't paying attention?"

Daniel's mouth quirks up at the side. "Yeah. You did."

Jack looks at the space around them, at the darkness, at the frozen, lifeless ship. He looks at Daniel, through light like an endless summer afternoon. Daniel looks back.

"So," Jack says, content. "This is the Afterlife, huh?" The light between them builds and brightens, and the ship recedes.

Daniel's grin widens. His hand is warm and strong in Jack's, his face open. "There isn't any after," he says. "Just life."


End file.
